Nixon and Obama: Impeachment for IRS Scandal?

The IRS Tea Party Scandal grows exponentially daily as more and more revelations of the degree of harassment against the Tea Party organizations, and dozens of other conservative groups, deepen. What is clear and certain with each twisted statement uttered by White House Press Secretary Jay Carney at his daily briefings is the drip, drip, drip of apparent cover up conduct.

Now it has been revealed by Fox News that even the IRS Inspector General’s audit report on Tea Party was coordinated between the IRS, Department of the Treasury and the White House Chief of Staff and the White House Counsel well before the president admitted knowledge of it from news reports.

In actuality, according to J. Russell George, the Treasury inspector general for tax administration admitted last week before the House Ways and Means Committee, that he informed officials of a Tea Party conduct audit at Treasury on June 4 2012, according to the Associated Press. Those officials were Treasury’s general counsel, on June 4, 2012, and Deputy Treasury Secretary Neal Wolin afterward.

The facts that are now being strained by the congressional Oversight Committee from administration witnesses in response to the IRS Inspector General Report are merely the tip of the iceberg. The reality that basic civil liberties of all Americans are at stake if a rouge operation exists within this organization and can impede and invade the rights of Tea Party members.

It is important to consider the weight of this constitutional crisis and understand that a simple break in of a Democrat campaign office, which led to the Watergate scandal, is a snowball compared to this crisis and scandal, which is an avalanche.

Many who lived through the Watergate years remember the crucial question of “What did the president know and when did he know it?” The answers were essential to connecting the criminal conspiracy of the break-in cover-up. The question that Americans now are being forced to swallow from Obama is, “Why did I have to know anything and what does it matter?”

Here is why it mattered to Nixon’s conduct and matters to Obama’s current conduct:

Articles of Impeachment

Article 2.1

Using the powers of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in disregard of his constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has repeatedly engaged in conduct violating the constitutional rights of citizens, impairing the due and proper administration of justice and the conduct of lawful inquiries, or contravening the laws governing agencies of the executive branch and the purposed of these agencies.

This conduct has included one or more of the following:

1. He has, acting personally and through his subordinates and agents, endeavored to obtain from the Internal Revenue Service, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, confidential information contained in income tax returns for purposed not authorized by law, and to cause, in violation of the constitutional rights of citizens, income tax audits or other income tax investigations to be initiated or conducted in a discriminatory manner.

Americans are not stupid. Despite the attempts by Obama to convince citizens to believe that for more than 27 months no Tea Party organization was given nonprofit approval due to low level political, overzealous hi-jinks, no one is biting. These actions were practiced by staffers in the IRS Cincinnati office and others, and now the real truth needs to be coordinated by a House Select Committee to ferret out the truth.

About the author: Kevin Fobbs

Kevin Fobbs has more than 35 years of wide-ranging experience as a community and tenant organizer, Legal Services outreach program director, public relations consultant, business executive, gubernatorial and presidential appointee, political advisor, widely published writer, and national lecturer. Kevin is co-chair and co-founder of AC-3 (American-Canadian Conservative Coalition) that focuses on issues on both sides of the border between the two countries.